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Housing

We want everyone in Scotland to live in affordable, quality
homes that meet their needs. This is key to building and sustaining
a fairer and more prosperous Scotland.

Scotland has a strong record in housing delivery. We have
invested £1.7 billion in affordable housing over the lifetime
of this Parliament and have met and exceeded our target to deliver
30,000 affordable homes; from April 2011 to December 2015, we have
delivered 31,034 affordable homes, with 20,854 of these for social
rent, and within that, 5,405 council homes. Building on this
success, we and our partners want more homes delivered across all
tenures.

In the next Parliament, our target will be to deliver more than
50,000 affordable homes, backed by investment of over than £3
billion. We have listened to our partners and will continue to work
with them closely. The areas we will be focussing on to deliver
More Homes Scotland, an overarching approach to support the
increase in the supply of homes across all tenures are:

For 2016-17, the Housing Supply budget has been set at
£690 million. This will deliver between 8,000 - 9,000
affordable homes in 2016-17, 28% more homes than the average
output in the last 2 years.

Our target to deliver more than 50,000 affordable homes will
support approximately 14,000 full-time equivalent jobs a year in
the construction and related industries in Scotland and will
generate around £9 billion of economic activity over the
5-year life of the programme.

We have launched a new grant and loan Infrastructure Fund
with up to £50 million available for 2016-17. Working with
local authorities, we will provide targeted assistance to help
unlock strategically important housing sites and increase the
scale of housing delivery.

We will expand mid-market provision, building on successful
innovative initiatives which use guarantees and loans.

We have also followed up our support of the growth of the
private rented sector (
PRS). A
PRS Rental
Income Guarantee Scheme, developed with Homes for Scotland and
industry specialists through the
PRS working
party, is currently being market-tested.

We will consult local authorities, Registered Social
Landlords and others Spring 2016 on the resources, skills and
expertise they need to help build delivery capacity and to
identify where the critical gaps are and how best to fill
them.

In 2016-17 we will invest £160 million to help up to
5,000 people access homeownership. £80 million has been
allocated to the Open Market Shared Equity scheme to help up to
2,000 first time buyers on low to moderate income, and £80
million has been allocated to the Help to Buy (Scotland)
Affordable New Build and Smaller Developers Schemes to help up to
3,000 first time buyers and existing homeowners buy a new build
home.

In January this year we announced an increase in housing
grant subsidies by up to £14,000 for social and affordable
homes for rent with immediate effect. This will help councils and
housing associations to maintain momentum through to March 2019
and beyond to help deliver our 50,000 affordable homes
target.

A new £25 million fund was launched in February which will
provide an estimated 500 new affordable homes specifically to rural
areas across Scotland. We know building affordable housing in rural
areas presents different challenges compared to urban areas which
is why we are ensuring this fund is open to rural interests,
including community bodies, private landlords and landowners.

We are maintaining Scotland's leadership in financial innovation
and competence, continuing to work creatively with our partners and
use innovative ways to deliver more new homes across all tenures
for less public investment. Over 4,000 new affordable homes have
already been approved through a range of innovative financing
mechanisms, unlocking up to half a billion pounds of housing
investment. We are the first, and remain the only, national
government in the
UK and public sector body
in Scotland to invest in Charitable Bonds. We have plans to invest
£37 million in these bonds, creating loan finance to fund
affordable housing in Scotland, and generating charitable donations
of £1.4 million for regeneration charities and up to
£10 million for social housing. This could support the
delivery of up to 600 new affordable homes.

We are committed to a wide-ranging review of the planning
system, with a focus on improving the effectiveness of planning
processes that support the delivery of good quality housing
developments. The panel will make recommendations to Scottish
Ministers in May and we will respond later this year.

Fuel poverty

We remain committed to the statutory target of eradicating fuel
poverty, as far as is reasonably practicable, by November 2016 and
we are doing everything it can to tackle this issue. Latest
statistics show that fuel poverty levels have been contained
despite fuel prices rising.

In the budgets that we have under our control, we have
maintained the expenditure available for fuel poverty and energy
efficiency in what has been a tough financial climate. We have
allocated over half a billion pounds since 2009 on a raft of Fuel
Poverty and Energy Efficiency programmes. Since 2008 more than
900,000 measures have been installed in homes in Scotland - nearly
1 in 3 of all households (over 700,000) have now received energy
efficiency support. These were installed either directly funded by
Scottish Government schemes or supported by the broader enabling
environment created through our Home Energy Efficiency Programmes
for Scotland.

In the budget for 2016-17, we are making available more than
£103 million to tackle fuel poverty and energy efficiency
next year, which is a significant commitment in light of on-going
spending pressures and
UK Government cuts and
considerably more than previous governments in Scotland. This money
will be used to help install energy efficiency measures, including
solid wall insulation, in 14,000 homes and will build on the
900,000 energy efficiency measures delivered since 2008.

The majority of Scottish Government budget for fuel poverty and
energy efficiency programmes is allocated to the Home Energy
Efficiency Programmes for Scotland (
HEEPS)
Area Based Schemes (
HEEPS:
ABS). Area Based
Schemes are delivered by local authorities and prioritise fuel poor
areas, providing a range of insulation measures. Another element of
HEEPS
is Warmer Homes Scotland. This scheme is expected to help around
28,000 households over a 7 year period make their homes warmer and
cheaper to heat. We also have our
HEEPS:
Loans scheme which provides interest free loans.

Our record investment is reflected in the big improvements in
the energy efficiency of Scotland's housing. The share of homes
rated
EPC band
C and above has increased by 71% since 2010, and 11% in the last
year. We now have proportionately 53% more homes with a good
EPC
rating (C or above) than England.